Linger Til They Find You
by Snooze Button
Summary: Moritz agrees to walk Ilse home that night by the river. Thus begins their personal journey of self-discovery, as Moritz and Ilse realize what is truly important to them.
1. A Call in the Dark

"Good night, Ilse," Moritz murmured. He felt so distant, so apart. Looking at that hopeful, blissful, yet till deprived girl... It ate at him. It just wasn't fair that someone who'd fallen so far could hold on when he was losing his own grip.

"_Good night_?" Ilse responded. Obviously upset that Moritz had just rejected her invitation to follow her to her house. And yet... there was some odd edge to her words... But it didn't matter to Moritz. Nothing really did anymore.

"Virgil, the equations-remember?" he reminded her. He was getting sick of living this facade. He couldn't handle her searching eyes, looking beyond his refusals to his guarded soul... She _wasn't _going to stop him. Ilse bit her lip at his refusal.

"Just for an hour." she pressed. That same edge appeared. Through her strong tone, her demand sounded almost like... a plea.

"I can't" Moritz said. He was trying not to betray his morbid desire in his speech, but his words were weak, and just a little tinged with hysteria.

"Well, walk me at least!" Ilse ordered - or begged?

"Honestly," he said hoarsely, fighting the urge to just do as she asked, "I wish I could." Why didn't he let himself? He just... couldn't. He was deaf to the world, to what Ilse asked, and to what she offered.

Ilse looked lost for words. She looked at him, eyes beseeching. A kaleidescope of emotions - anger, frustration, loss, disappointment... Moritz could see it, but it didn't matter. He was steadfast. He wouldn't let anyone keep him from what he was going to do tonight. To end this entire charade that he was living.

He was alert to what was around him, but lost inside, his soul so shrouded in misery that Ilse's pleas couldn't break through. He was crashing so hard. He had failed, he had lost the pride and love of his family, and all hope for getting it back. It gnawed him at his core, and he felt as if he was drowning in his own failures - the ways he had failed his family, the ways he had failed himself. It was enough to make any strong man stumble.

Moritz was not a strong man. He fell hard.

Though he could vaguely sense a deeper truth in Ilse, nothing registered. He ignored the hurt, hopeful figure's words, resolutely blocking out anything that could mean salvation. A chance. Ilse finally opened her mouth, a sort of angry, despaired confession tumbling out.

"You know," she mumbled, and somehow in the dark, the moonlight reflecting off of the river in waving slivers, he could see her eyes well up, reddening around the edges, "by the time you finally wake up... I'll be lying on some trash heap."

The corner of her mouth twitched, and Ilse turned and fled, her bare feet not quite moving fast enough to avoid betraying her desperation. Moritz winced, her pain stinging him, and it was then that Moritz realized his mistake.

"For the love of God," he croaked. Silence around him, pressing his insides in. "All I had to do was say yes!"

Ilse... That blithe, light-hearted girl from his childhood... Damn it, he cursed inwardly. He could have felt that happiness again! He could've felt that infectious hope. Maybe...

Maybe there _had_ been something to live for.

She was gone. His insides were collapsing. The river gushed, the relatively calm water loud in the silence, a meaningless roar.

No...

His last chance was gone. The pistol weighed a thousand tons in his coat pocket.

"Ilse?" Moritz called. No repsonse. Twilight was over. The darkness was closing in, so thick, _so dark_... Like veil - no, like a heavy, stifling quilt...

"Ilse...?"

It echoed off of the trees, his scared, desperate voice magnified in the quietness. He felt like he was hollow, air whistling uselessly through him. It felt like the river had stopped flowing and splashing as the seconds ticked mutely by...

"Moritz?"

He heard a crunch a ways away in the gloom. The river was splashing again. The dark quilt lifted.

"You'll walk with me?" sniffed the gruff voice of Ilse. Her bare feet approached, the moonlight ricocheting off of the river onto her again. Her flush was fading away, and her eyes were hopeful again.

"Yes," Moritz breathed. He was thick again, not hollow. He shifted his feet.

"Let's... let's get going now," he muttered stiffly.

Ilse grinned. She approached him, and took his hand into hers, warmth enveloping his own hand. Togther they ventured, and Moritz followed closely.


	2. Clutched Hands

The wet grass folded beneath their feet as Moritz and Ilse stepped aimlessly through the moonlight. Well, not really aimlessly, as they were headed in the _general_ direction of Ilse's house, but to Moritz, the lazy, slow, care-free way Ilse tugged him along felt wayward and blind.

Ilse seemed to like erratically straying from the path to her home, as far as Moritz could remember of her address, and then finding her way back on trail. Moritz didn't comment though.

Her hand still enveloped Moritz's. And as soon as they left the river, Ilse's voice, a little shaky from her hysteria minutes ago, floated on the night air.

"It's been so long since you've been to my house, hasn't it?" she mused. "One day we should find Melchi and Wendla and play pirates again. Just the four of us..."

Ilse's voice was distant, lost in the past. Moritz then registered that it was a little odd that she was so fond of those times when she seemed to have so thoroughly moved on with her new artist friends. Again, he knew not to comment.

_Squish, squish, squish._

Moritz observed that Ilse wasn't wearing shoes. He marveled quietly at the feeling of the damp grass beneath bare feet - it had only stopped raining an hour ago. It seemed to him so free, somehow. But then, that would work perfectly for Ilse.

It was nice to have Ilse hold his hand, although somewhere in the back of his mind, Moritz realized that such a gesture could imply embarrassing innuendo - a girl leading a small child, for instance, or two lovers strolling. Back in the corner of his head, Moritz was a self-conscious teenage boy that would be embarrassed by such a docile gesture.

But it felt good to have an accepting, caring hand over his own. And further under the surface, it felt good to be led along, to not have a responsibility, or a blame, or a potential failure... Tonight, he wasn't _wrong_, as he was so often before.

But Moritz realized he wasn't really supplying conversation. Hoping Ilse wasn't offened by his awkward silence, he opened his mouth.

"Er, so," he started, voice more breathy than he wanted it to be, "how do your parents feel about you living with the artist colony?" He had only been casting around for conversation, but found himself curious in spite of himself.

Ilse didn't answer, but the hand Moritz felt around his seemed to tense. Hurriedly, he continued, Ilse's expression indescernable in the dark night.

"I mean," Moritz revised quickly, "That is - it's - it's nice of them, you know, how they give you that freedom. My own parents... they probably..." Moritz just let his voice trail off to a mumble.

He wished he hadn't brought up his parents. And also, the rambling did not seem to be good conversation. Ilse still didn't look at him.

Suddenly, she took her hand out of Moritz's. He winced, cheeks flushed, eyes down. Another mess-up. Still they continued their slow pace to Ilse's house. She finally responded.

"They don't care," she muttered.

Moritz's gaze flashed back to her. What? The implications of the statement stirred in his head. His eyes were wide.

Ilse then turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. The moonlight washed the side of her face in pale light. She shrugged a shoulder at him nonchalantly, which seemed a little inappropriate for such a statement.

"I mean, it's a good thing," she said, responding to his look. "They don't breathe down my neck or concern themselves over me." Still, something on Moritz's face unsatisfied her, and she added "It's great!"

Then she smiled at him, perhaps to illustrate the point. There was something, and Moritz couldn't quite put his finger on it, fundamentally wrong with that smile.

Ilse's face turned forward again, and Moritz looked down again, embarrassed at the uncomfortable air of their company. Ilse started talking again, very casually, but not looking at him.

"So Wendla... and Thea, Anna, Martha - they haven't mentioned anything about my parents?"

"No," Moritz responded quickly. "I don't really even see them anymore, now that we go to different schools." He thought he could see some redness on the side of Ilse's face in the moonlight, but he couldn't tell for sure.

"I see..."

There was another uncomfortable silence.

Ilse's statement rang in Moritz's head. "They don't care"... The thought of it! Parents that didn't care. Even Moritz's own parents, people he tried so hard to please, who put so much pressure on him, who had pained him so much... They definitely cared. He couldn't imagine having a father who didn't want him to excel, or a mother who didn't mind if he threw his life away...

He felt something of a connection to Ilse just then. Her face forward, walking ahead of him in the darkness, the distance between them felt gaping. He felt for once like someone was on his level... Not like Melchior, someone whom Moritz loved dearly, but always seemed so... above him. So well put together.

The thought swam in Moritz's head. His parents would never let him live like Ilse. Overbearing, rough, distant. But they cared.

Moritz felt unlike himself. Odd, but it was not an entirely bad feeling. In a simple, quick, but unbearably bold movement, he closed the distance between him and Ilse, and took her hand, walking up next to her so that they were together, unified. Warm hands clutching eachother.

Ilse glanced at him and forward again, and her lips twitched into a small smile.

"So do you still see Melchior Gabor?" she asked awkwardly, a refreshing subject change. "How is he?" Moritz obliged gladly - this was a topic he knew well, and one without those awkward pitfalls.

"He's doing... well. He's at the top of the class, in fact..."

This kind of talk was easy and light, and Moritz felt the heaviness completely leave him for the first time since Frau Knuppeldick and Herr Knochenbruch approached with news of his grades...

It was easy to forget, in this kind of chatter, that he was a failure, that he didn't know where he'd go if he survived the night, and that he didn't have place he could consider home.

The Melchior conversation would carry them all the way to Ilse's house...


	3. Within the Shadows

They wandered beneath the trees beside the road, freckles of silver-white light raining down through the leaves into their hair. Ilse gasped in shock, stopping and turning back to him, her hand dangling from their ever-intertwined fingers.

"An _atheist_! Melchior Gabor?" Moritz watched as her eyes seemed to deepen with wonder. He nodded at her, shivering slightly to himself at the thought of his best friend's rebellion.

"We won't even attend church anymore. His parents are always there without him..." Moritz looked off in quiet amazement, marveling at the idea of abandoning Catholicism. His parents, of course, would never allow it. He wouldn't dare even to suggest questioning the way they lived - the way every upstanding family in town lived. He could imagine his father's voice in his head at the very mention of skipping mass.

_"You want to miss church?" his father's voice grumbled in his deadly calm tone, one that often precedes shouting. "And just how would your mother and I look if our own son was absent from the service? What would our neighbors say?" The calm voice began to rise slowly, and a sort of furious shaking was detectable underneath the sound. "How could we face Father Kaulbach? Our only son, abandoning his morals... living in disgrace! Do you ever think, son!"_

Moritz shuddered, unable to stop the voice as it echoed in his head. Surprisingly, his parents had not denounced Melchior or his actions. Despite some subtle haughtiness towards Melchior's parents, they never mentioned his sinful acts, and always seemed to approve of Moritz spending time with him. In most ways, Melchior was all they wanted Moritz to be - smart, eloquent, handsome, charming, strong... Moritz knew it and accepted it, but the knowledge made a bitterness rise inside him, a sour hatred like none other Moritz had ever felt.

It was not Melchior that he hated. He looked on his best friend only with admiration and love, the only person Moritz could confide in and trust and feel himself with, the only person who could even begin to understand him. No, the only person Moritz hated was himself.

"Melchi Gabor..." Ilse breathed beside Moritz as she strolled with him, breaking him from his reverie. The thought of Melchior's godlessness did not seem to have quite as dizzying an effect on Ilse. Her face was softened into blissful smile, her eyes still wide; she looked quite young, a shadow of the innocence Moritz knew she had lost glowing in her features. "To think that he would disobey his parents. He was such an obedient boy!"

Moritz remembered the young, polite yet adventurous Melchior. No matter how relaxed and allowing Melchior's parents were, back then one never would have guessed he'd grow to be such a radical. Ilse suddenly laughed, a long, free laugh.

"Moritz!" she she said suddenly. "Do you remember that day in summer - we were playing with my hobby horses by my mother's favorite plum tree, and Melchi wanted to prove that he was braver than us, and-"

"He tried to climb up on those thin branches," Moritz remembered, a smile breaking over his ashen face, "and they broke! And he almost fell right onto poor Wendla!" He was laughing now, quiet laughs shaking his frame. Ilse continued to laugh with him.

"And he destroyed my favorite horse! And mother's prized tree," she said between giggles. "And went straight to my parents and begged them not to tell Frau Gabor!" Ilse, her laughter freely bounding across the woods in uncontrollable glee leaned on Moritz for support, causing them to stumble through the moonlight-dappled path, both breathless from laughing. Moritz had not felt this free in a long time. Ilse wiped some tears from her eyes.

"I miss those times..." she said quietly, breathing heavily, and renewed giggles took hold of her.

Moritz looked out down the road, and saw, alone along the empty road, where the trees had thinned to an almost treeless clearing, Ilse's house. It looked mostly like he had remembered it, only much darker. Moritz could not ever remember seeing her house with all the lights turned out, even at night. The wildflowers that used to blanket her lawn and the hills seemed to have disappeared, perhaps with the sudden cold of October. As Ilse's eyes looked up to see it, her laughing stopped and her smile subsided. She released his hand.

Instead of the security he had expected to feel, Moritz was suddenly taken with some strange feeling of uneasiness. He had tried not to face these feelings but could not keep them away for long. Ilse's house... where they would be alone, to do whatever Ilse wanted to do.

The thought had hovered in the back of his mind since meeting her, and it was a thought with a powerful hold on him. It was haunting and terrifying so that it chilled him to the bone, and yet it was one that he could not shake and could not fathom ignoring. He knew he would succumb to it - it was not his choice. This could be his last chance to give in to the battle he'd been fighting against himself, and feel at last what he knew he was meant to feel.

He looked form the house to Ilse, who watched it with as much trepidation as he watched her, her creamy skin and dark, curly hair classically beautiful and glowing in the moonlight. This was what he wanted, right?

* * *

The door clattered behind them as Moritz and Ilse stepped into the dark house. He stood uneasily as she felt along the wall for the gas lamp, lighting it with a hiss and a crackle. The light bloomed through the foyer, illuminating the dark paneled floors Ilse's ordered sitting room to the side and a white-walled hall to her kitchen straight ahead.

Ilse was not holding his hand, and strode ahead of him down the hall. Something about the way she carried herself and the way her hands swayed so close to her thighs, the way her shoulders seemed to stiffly sway, suggested that she was closing herself off. The rift between them as Moritz followed, though only a few feet, effectively separated them into their own solitude. Moritz felt a spark knot the muscles of his shoulders as the shadows of the house seemed to fold around him.

A lone candle flickered on the kitchen table, the flame swaying gently and casting a weak orange glow on the room, creating more shadow than light. Moritz's breath caught in his throatas he saw that someone else was there, sitting at the wooded table, her back to the window's billowing curtains.

Frau Neumann was an older woman, carrying herself with less grace and uprightness than Moritz's mother, but somehow with a harsher, less gentle air. Her graying black hair was pulled back showing her tired yet sharp-looking face as she hovered over a letter on the table. She looked up as Ilse and Moritz entered.

"Good evening, Frau Neumann," Moritz said in little more than a whisper, his quiet, shaking voice nevertheless cutting through the empty air. He stood stick-straight in the door frame. Ilse had not stopped but headed straight for the stairs beside the kitchen with no more than a glance towards her mother. She stopped on the first stair, her back to the room, perhaps waiting for Moritz.

Frau Neumann looked from Moritz to Ilse with an unsettled expression on her face. Her eyes widened, her mouth pulling into a hard line, and her face seemed to pale slightly in the candle's light. Ilse began to walk up the stairs without looking back, and as Frau Neumann's eyes followed her daughter, Moritz was gripped by that uneasiness, that unnatural coldness and strange sensation of fear.

Moritz stood for another second as Frau Neumann said nothing, seeming to forget he was there as her eyes traveled back to the table, and he went to follow Ilse up the stairs to where he knew her old room was. His footsteps echoed with a graceless thud with every step, a sharp contrast to Ilse's silent glide. Following Ilse to the door of her room, the uneasiness sat in his stomach, growing into a sickening weight that he could not shake.

From down stairs, the scratching of pen on paper resumed.


	4. The Worst Failure

The door closed behind Moritz with a snap, and a sudden chill stopped him in his place as he took in Ilse's room.

It looked exactly as he remembered it, as if frozen in time, untouched from his childhood days in which this room was a place of secrets and bravery and whatever he and the others wanted it to be. The same bed, with the same white crochet comforter stood in the corner. The paneled floors, dustier and colder than ever before, held Ilse's once-magnificent dresser, where she and Wendla would confound the boys with their precocious knowledge of fashion and elegance. The old wooden chest sat in its place under the window, and Moritz wondered if the toys he and Melchior spent so much time discovering together remained in its shadowy depths.

The room was lit with a colorless pale blue by the moons glow, coming through the wide window, the mint lace-trimmed curtains pulled back to reveal the country beyond - the waving green fields beyond the rolling hills, interspersed with the magnificent trees he remembered huddling under when it rained or when the sun would beat down in a deadly glare.

Frau Neumann's plum tree was in plain view. The broken branches stood out like battle wounds, and from the highest stump hung a lone swing that he had forgotten about, but now remembered vividly. He remembered Melchior, abashed as he always was when admitting a wrong, finally apologizing to Ilse for breaking the plum tree. Ilse's smile was somewhat deceptive.

_"It's fine, Melchi,"_ she had said. _"I have an idea to make it even better than before!"_

And thus, she and Melchior fashioned a wobbly, slanted swing to hang from the high broken branch from which Melchior had fallen. Back then, she never held onto sadness. In a way, she was more of a leader than Melchior, in that she always had a plan for the next big adventure - and past failures were always left forgotten. Their childhood fun was held in her capable, controlled hands.

From the door, Moritz watched Ilse with an unfounded apprehension. She was not the same Ilse he remembered, leaning up against the window sill in nothing but that wrinkled white smock. Sure, she was in control, just as always - always the all-knowing one with all the secrets and her own plan. But something about her had become unsure. Slight. Frantic.

She turned to him and smiled. It looked nothing like the smile he remembered, and while hauntingly beautiful, it made the hairs on the back of Moritz's neck stand on end and his stomach seem to shrivel. What was wrong with him?

"It's been so long since I've been here," she said, and the tone of her voice was different than it was out in the woods or by the river. Softer, more calm. She laughed a sudden, out-of-place laugh that must have been forced. "Of course, for you it's been ages! I'm sure hardly remember it."

"Actually, I remember it well." Moritz's voice came feebly from his tensed throat, and he cleared it. Ilse simply watched him, face, it seemed to him, to be looking very far away. He felt like an outsider in her world. Something was wrong.

Ilse crossed over to her bed and sat down on the edge, her distant eyes remaining fixed on him, the ghost of her smile remaining.

"So, Moritz, we're alone again. I have endless time to spare... we could do anything." Her smile became coy.

At the mention of being alone, however, Frau Neumann flashed through Moritz's mind, sitting in solitude on the floor below, not speaking to her daughter or even acknowledging her presence. But Moritz tried not to think of that.

"Yes, I - I suppose we are alone..."

Ilse watched him as if waiting for something, and to Moritz, this was horribly uncomfortable, as he hadn't the faintest idea how to deliver this. He knew what was coming. The next logical step to being alone with the free, wild, beautiful Ilse. But Moritz could not stop seeing Frau Neumann's face, surprised and then indifferent but entirely cold. It was not how a mother looked.

The entire dark, cold house made Moritz want to retreat within himself. He didn't want to be here, but he could not think of any other place he wanted to be.

After a pause, Ilse got up and approached him. She got up close to him, as close as she had been when they had walked together, only this time Moritz felt much more crowded. He stood his ground, however, as her coquettish smile came close to his own face.

"I've missed you, Moritz," she said in little more than a whisper, her face a mere foot from his own. Moritz could see her eyes up close now, and though her eyelids drooped affectionately, her eyes seemed somehow unfocused, looking through him. "I'm so glad I found you tonight..."

Her face came even closer. Their noses were inches apart. Moritz felt that he should say something, but he was completely frozen from the inside out, his pounding heart the only sign of movement. This is what he wanted.

She was so beautiful in this light. Her skin seemed to glow in the moon's light, and her dark ringlets fell so softly and gently. This was right. This was what he wanted.

Suddenly, her lips met his, and her hands found his collar, roaming his neck and shoulders as she kissed him. Despite his unwarranted surprise, he began to kiss her back, returning the pressure and allowing her lips between his, her tongue to graze his lips. He let his hands touch her waist waist and they were so close now, her warm, soft body pressing against his stiff, frozen one.

Before he knew it she was pulling him to her bed, kissing him with a passion that felt so unreal, a fire that he felt he should return but could not muster within himself. He didn't know what he was doing and was becoming more and more aware of this fact as the kissing become more and more ferocious.

She was on top of him, and her hands began to pull at his jacket, toying with the buttons. Yes. it was finally happening. This was it.

Suddenly, somehow, through Moritz's mind flashed Ilse's face as he remembered it from the walk home - smiling brightly, honestly happy and carefree. He saw the Ilse from his boyhood, swinging from the plum tree with her wild laughter bouncing through the trees. The darkness of the house around them felt as if it was creeping into him, stiffening his arms and freezing his mouth.

Moritz's eyes blinked open and he saw hers, so close in the shadows, closed. His heart skipped a beat as he realized how lifeless she looked, despite her fiery embrace. That's when he realized.

He just couldn't do it.

He knew that tonight he could not have sex with Ilse, and the thought made his stomach seem to fall and the air leave his lungs. Normal boys would definitely be able to be with this willing, pretty, seductive girl, but Moritz realized that he was not a normal boy. Maybe he just wasn't meant to ever do this. Maybe he was meant to live with these maddening feelings forever. The endless wanting, the deprivation, the self-loathing, the confused, feeble reasoning. It was just a curse he would need to live with, however long this continued.

Ilse had succeeded in unfastening his jacket, and was trying to slip it over his shoulders when his hands grasped hers and lifted her gently off of him.

"Ilse," he said when their lips parted, but she came back, kissing him again until he pushed her harder. "Ilse, stop."

"Moritz," she moaned, trying to pull herself back to him.

"No, Ilse, stop. I-I can't..."

Taking all of his strength, he sat up and pushed her off of him, restraining her with his elbows locked. Her eyes widened with a sudden fear and she seemed so small in his arms.

"I can't do this, Ilse," Moritz whispered hoarsely. He felt lifeless inside, and he could see in the reflection of Ilse's wide glassy eyes that his face was white as chalk and looked scared.

Ilse seemed lost for words. Her shoulders began to tremble in Moritz's steadfast grip, and a flush bloomed across her cheeks. Her mouth opened the toniest bit as if she were about to say something before the glassiness of her eyes spilled over onto her cheeks as shining tears. If Moritz looked scared before, it was now apparent on his face that he was horrified.

A sharp breath that sounded like a sob escaped her lips and she struggled in his arms, pushing away from him roughly. She backed away from him slowly, her scared, dumbfounded expression melting into something else as her crying took over, her round eyes remaining fixed on him.

"I'm sorry," Moritz said quietly, but Ilse shook her head a tiny bit.

"Get out," she rasped in a low but forceful voice.

"Ilse-"

"I said, _get_ _out_!" Her command was loud this time as she tore her eyes away from him and wrenched her closet door open, disappearing into it's shadows and slamming the door behind her with a crash that shook the floor.

Moritz remained sitting on the bed in a state of shock, feeling a strange numbness from the neck down. He could hear her quiet sobs, muffled from behind the door, and sat in mortified terror. After a few seconds, he got up and approached the door, wracking his brain for something, anything to say, and finding nothing.

"Please," came Ilse's voice from behind the door, a tiny whimper of a sound. "Please, just leave me alone."

* * *

**_A/N_**_:____I'm back! Boy, did this take a while haha. I hope there are still a bunch of die-hard Guilty Ones out there, because as I return to this story, I notice this fandom has become less and less active. I never forgot this story, though! I've been busy with a lot lately and I hadn't completely plotted out how this would play out, but now that everything is outlined and set, I'm ready to write this and finish it._

_Please review! Every comment, whether positive or negative, is extremely valuable to me, and while this isn't meant to be a threat or anything (haha gosh no!) I do find it hard to find inspiration to write when I feel that no one's reading. I haven't really had to struggle with that with most of my stories, and I'm not staying I won't try to write, but I want to emphasize that it really, really helps me out when you guys tell me what you think, harsh or not. I'm publishing this for two reasons: to share my story with others and to improve as a writer. Thank you guys and please, please, please tell me what you think!_


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